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[Alyallen]

Japan minister commits suicide, adding to PM's woes

By Linda Sieg and George Nishiyama 18 minutes ago

TOKYO (Reuters) - A scandal-tainted minister in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet committed suicide on Monday, compounding problems for the Japanese leader whose support has already slumped ahead of a July election.


It was the first suicide by a Japanese cabinet minister since the days immediately after Japan's defeat in World War Two, according to officials at the national library.

"This will have serious political fallout, but at this point it's hard to tell how much," a government official told Reuters.

Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka's suicide came as Abe's public support rate fell to its lowest level since he took office last September, due largely to voter anger over a mixup regarding pension payments.

The dent in Abe's popularity had already increased chances that his ruling camp would lose its majority in the election for parliament's upper house, his first big test at the polls.

Matsuoka, under fire for a series of political funding scandals, was found unconscious in his room on Monday at a Tokyo residential complex for lawmakers, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told reporters.

Police later confirmed that Matsuoka, 62, had died in hospital, but declined to comment on reports in the Japanese media, including public broadcaster NHK, that he had left a suicide note and hanged himself.

Matsuoka had been linked by local media to at least two political fund scandals including one involving massive dubious spending on his office near parliament.

Last week, media also reported that he had received political donations from businessmen involved in a bid-rigging scandal.

Matsuoka had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Critics had charged that Abe was protecting Matsuoka, and the prime minister's image would likely suffer in the short term, political analysts said. But they added that the long-term fallout could depend on how Abe handled the matter.

"It's hard to say what will happen. It depends on Abe's response," said Jun Iio, a political science professor at the National Graduate Institute for Political Studies.

"This could make it hard for the opposition to follow up on the scandals, but it could also give the impression that there was something so bad that he had to commit suicide."

Financial markets had no immediate reaction to the news.

PENSION WOES

Abe's administration was already under fire after the Social Insurance Agency, which manages the pension system, acknowledged that data on 50 million premium payments had been mixed up.

The failure to keep track of the payments means some people are probably getting smaller pensions than they are entitled to.

Abe has said his government would try to sort out the problem, but voters appeared unconvinced.

Only 32 percent of the voters who responded to a weekend survey by the Mainichi newspaper backed Abe, down 11 points from April, while a separate poll by the Nikkei business daily put the prime minister's support rate at 41 percent, down 12 points.

The Mainichi survey showed that 42 percent of the voters want the main opposition Democratic Party to win the July election, compared with 33 percent who want Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to win.

The slide in Abe's popularity erased gains made after a visit to the United States for talks with President George W. Bush and a summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that bolstered ties with Beijing which had frayed under his predecessor.

Voter concern over Japan's creaking pension system was the Achilles' heel for Abe's party in the last upper house election in 2004, when the Democrats outperformed the LDP.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner, New Komeito, managed to keep their majority in the chamber then. But this time the ruling camp may not be so lucky, some analysts said.

"The LDP will lose seats and the Democrats will go up, and it is definitely possible that the opposition winds up with a majority," said Steven Reed, a political science professor at Chuo University in Tokyo, before news of the minister's suicide.

The LDP and New Komeito need to win a total of 64 seats out of 121 up for grabs in the July election to keep their majority in the 242-seat upper house.

Loss of a majority in the upper house would not require Abe to resign, since the lower chamber picks the premier.

But it could increase calls within Abe's own party to step down and would also mean that the opposition could block key legislation and delay economic reforms.

Legislative deadlock could force the prime minister to call a snap election for the lower house, analysts said, although no lower house election is required until 2009.

(Additional reporting by George Nishiyama, Ikuko Kao, Teruaki Ueno and Nelson Graves)

[dogbert]

U.S. politicians have a lot to learn from the Japanese.

[EFLtrainer]

I don't condone suicide without good reason (euthanasia, etc.,), but the idea of accountability is so dead in the US... sorry about the pun...

[cangel]

What exactly can US politicians learn from Japanese politicians?